[Salon] Throughout the Country, Progressive Politics Is In Retreat As Crime Grows And Schools Are Politicized

THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY, PROGRESSIVE POLITICS IS IN RETREAT AS CRIME
                      GROWS AND SCHOOLS ARE POLITICIZED
                                                          BY
                                 ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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Progressive politicians who promoted the movement to “defund the police,” among other things, are in retreat across the country as crime skyrockets in many areas and schools become increasingly politicized. Interestingly, it is establishment figures within the Democratic Party who are turning their backs on the vocal extremists in their own ranks.

The Democratic candidate for mayor of Louisville, Kentucky, Craig Greenberg, was the target of a shooting in February. He said that the quick release of the shooter left him and his family “traumatized again.” He declared that, “Our criminal justice system is clearly broken. It is nearly impossible to believe that someone can attempt murder on Monday and walk out of jail on Wednesday,” said Greenberg.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell cites this incident as evidence of the negative role being played by the group Black Lives Matter (BLM). The suspect in this murder attempt, 21-year-old Quintez Brown, had been an organizer with BLM Louisville and an independent candidate for the city’s Municipal Council. The Louisville Community Bail Fund, an arm of the local BLM chapter, paid the bail that secured his relief.

This far-left BLM activist and a vocal defund-the-police advocate walked into a Democratic campaign headquarters and opened fire. “Less than 48 hours after this activist tried to literally murder a politician, the radical left bailed their comrade out of jail,” said McConnell. He pointed out that bail reform has been a central organizing tenet of BLM. The group opposes cash bail. There is reason to believe that anti-Semitism was involved in the attack on mayoral candidate Greenberg, who is Jewish. Kentucky rabbi Shlomo Litvin called Brown “an anti-Semitic radical terrorist” and pointed to social media posts in which Brown associated himself with the Black Hebrew Israelite ideology and referred to NFL owners who are Jewish as “plantation owners.” He called local support in Louisville for Greenberg as mayor “dollar democracy.”

In New York City, a leading progressive voice, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), denounced the New York Police Department for demonizing Bronx shoplifters. She cast doubt on the legitimacy of the arrests, suggesting that police had gone after impoverished people who were stealing to supply their own babies with diapers and formula. She tweeted, “It’s much easier to frame people who steal baby formula and medicine as monsters to be jailed than acknowledge our politics and economic priorities create conditions where people steal baby formula to survive.” She went on to claim that rising criminal activity came because child tax credits had been withdrawn. She told The New Yorker, “We don’t want to say some of the things that are obvious, like gee, the child tax credit just ran out and now people are stealing baby formula.”

A look at those who were arrested for shoplifting in the Bronx tells a far different story.   They look very much like career criminals. Among them were these: Wes Weston Coof, 38, who had been convicted of assault in a bar fight in 2008, his second felony arrest. He has 8 arrests on his record.; Tanya, Thomas, 43, has 26 prior arrests, including for prostitution and robbery; Euniya Morales, 34, has been arrested 22 times, including for assault; Carlos Binet landed in jail for obstructing someone’s breathing in addition to a variety of other criminal offenses.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez referred to these career criminals as parents seeking diapers and formula for their children because of a decline in government assistance. Instead, police pointed out, criminals steal such items because they are easy to sell for cash on the street. In New York City, crime is up 45.6%. In the recent mayoral election, candidates advocating defunding the police were easily defeated. The winner in the Democratic primary, and now New York’s mayor, is Eric Adams, a former police officer. Mr. Adams, who is black, points out that it is minority communities which are harmed most by the increase in criminal activity.

It is not only with regard to crime that the progressive agenda is being rejected, even in the nation’s most liberal cities, such as San Francisco. Three members of the School Board were removed in recall elections. Many believe the whole Board would have been recalled if they were eligible to be on the ballot. The other four members of the existing Board had been elected too recently to be recalled.The results were not close, and the recall was supported by San Francisco’s liberal Democratic mayor, London Breed. In the election, 75% of voters supported the recall of Board president Gabriela López, 73% voted to recall Taavug Moliga, and 79% voted to recall Alison Collins.

The deposed School Board chairman declared, “Don’t be mistaken, white supremacists are enjoying this. The support of the recall is aligned with this.”

In fact, the reason for the recall had nothing whatever to do with “white supremacism.” Instead, noted THE Washington Post, “The recall effort was initiated by a couple frustrated by the board’s failure to reopen schools last academic year. . Even as other districts opened or developed hybrid in-person and remote systems, and as private schools in the area operated in person, San Francisco remained remote for almost all students, who did not return until the fall…The Board spent months deliberating the renaming of 44 schools after a committee found their namesakes had connections to slavery, oppression and racism, although many of the alleged ties…were historically questionable or inaccurate. Those targeted included George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and …longtime Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.”

The School Board also argued that Lowell High School, an elite program populated largely by white and Asian-American students, who compete for admission based on competitive tests and academic records, needed to have its admission policy changed.   The Board, in an effort to increase black and Hispanic representation, altered the admission rules and switched to a lottery. This decision incensed San Francisco’s large Chinese-American community as well as other Asian residents, who read the changes as hurtful to students from their community who worked hard and got the top grades and scores.

The two parents who launched the recall campaign, Siva Raj and Autumn Looijen, said, “In this deeply divided city, in this deeply divided country, it shows that there are some things we can all agree on. Competent leadership. Good public schools. Protecting our most disadvantaged kids.”

One of the deposed School Board members, Allison Collins, posted anti-Asian tweets before she joined the Board. They accused Asian Americans of benefiting from “the model minority BS” and using “white supremacist thinking to assimilate and ‘get ahead.’” She also suggested they were not standing up to President Donald Trump, using a racial slur to describe them.

Newsweek declares that, “This is a wake up call for progressives.” In San Francisco, the debate was driven not by Republicans or conservatives. It played out within the Democratic Party. After a Republican was narrowly elected Governor of Virginia, in a memo for Third Way, a centrist Democratic think tank, political consultant Brian Stryker warned that Democrats are vulnerable on education, particularly as it relates to the perception that they favored school closings. “We should expect this backlash to continue especially as it plays into another way where parents and communities feel like they are losing control over their schools in addition to the basics of even being able to decide if they’re open or not,” he wrote.

Jenny Lam, a San Francisco School Board member who was not subject to recall, said the election was a wake-up call: “With this evening’s election, we change course. We now must move forward to focus our energy back on our students and our schools.”

The progressive agenda, at least with regard to crime and education, does not appear to represent the interests and values of the majority of Americans, even the majority of Democrats. Events in New York City and San Francisco make this clear. Hopefully, Democrats who want to win elections will take notice.